After about 3 years of trying to get down to South Texas to hunt Nilgai, finally made it happen a couple weeks ago!
King Ranch is an awesome place, seemed like deer, turkey & javelina were just about everywhere. It was also very cool just driving around the ranch seeing all the sights & the guide was a wealth of knowledge.
Getting to the area the guide wanted to stalk took a while. We'd walked a mile or so when a nice one stepped out onto the trail from the thick stuff. His head was a bit obscured by limbs, but guide put up the sticks and said get ready to shoot-give me a second to check him out. I was ready when a couple seconds later he said, that's a good one, probably should shoot him. I'm not sure he even had all those words out before I pulled the trigger. Bull was quartering to about 60 yards and one 308 Barnes TTSX to the chest made him rear up and go back where he came from but he only made it about 30 yards. I had my bull much quicker than I would have guessed! A big bull is a beautiful animal and it was pretty awesome walking up on my first one! King Ranch had said that average horn length on bulls harvested there was 8". Mine was about 8 1/2", so a bit better than average, which was all I was hoping for.
After pictures, a quick gutting job revealed that the bullet took out a lung and the top of the heart - never a bad thing for the hunter!
We may have hunted an hour, so the guide fully understood when I said - I want to see more of the ranch, Let's go kill a hog. He said, yeah we don't want them here, let's go get one!
Back in the truck, we took another lengthy drive to a spot the guide figured would have some hogs. He did an excellent job not getting us stuck in the deep sand ruts all over the ranch. He certainly got the concepts of momentum and 'don't baby it'!
The hog hunt had hardly started when the guide spotted a big sow sleeping under a tree and we were already about 20 yards from it. I didn't miss the chip shot and the sow gave a little twitch, rolled over and that was it! Sow was about 175 pounds or so.
So an awesome morning at the King Ranch!
Fortunately I was able to combine a 1 day hunt with a week vacation in South Texas. Seems like plenty to do down there in addition to hunting Nilgai. Living about 16 hours away, the drive was the biggest deterrent, so finding a time the better half could go along was a key detail.
No regrets on my hunt, I'll be ready to go again once I can get this one eaten.
I've been trying (with no luck) to get pictures small enough to upload - maybe somebody who is good with that can provide an assist?
King Ranch is an awesome place, seemed like deer, turkey & javelina were just about everywhere. It was also very cool just driving around the ranch seeing all the sights & the guide was a wealth of knowledge.
Getting to the area the guide wanted to stalk took a while. We'd walked a mile or so when a nice one stepped out onto the trail from the thick stuff. His head was a bit obscured by limbs, but guide put up the sticks and said get ready to shoot-give me a second to check him out. I was ready when a couple seconds later he said, that's a good one, probably should shoot him. I'm not sure he even had all those words out before I pulled the trigger. Bull was quartering to about 60 yards and one 308 Barnes TTSX to the chest made him rear up and go back where he came from but he only made it about 30 yards. I had my bull much quicker than I would have guessed! A big bull is a beautiful animal and it was pretty awesome walking up on my first one! King Ranch had said that average horn length on bulls harvested there was 8". Mine was about 8 1/2", so a bit better than average, which was all I was hoping for.
After pictures, a quick gutting job revealed that the bullet took out a lung and the top of the heart - never a bad thing for the hunter!
We may have hunted an hour, so the guide fully understood when I said - I want to see more of the ranch, Let's go kill a hog. He said, yeah we don't want them here, let's go get one!
Back in the truck, we took another lengthy drive to a spot the guide figured would have some hogs. He did an excellent job not getting us stuck in the deep sand ruts all over the ranch. He certainly got the concepts of momentum and 'don't baby it'!
The hog hunt had hardly started when the guide spotted a big sow sleeping under a tree and we were already about 20 yards from it. I didn't miss the chip shot and the sow gave a little twitch, rolled over and that was it! Sow was about 175 pounds or so.
So an awesome morning at the King Ranch!
Fortunately I was able to combine a 1 day hunt with a week vacation in South Texas. Seems like plenty to do down there in addition to hunting Nilgai. Living about 16 hours away, the drive was the biggest deterrent, so finding a time the better half could go along was a key detail.
No regrets on my hunt, I'll be ready to go again once I can get this one eaten.
I've been trying (with no luck) to get pictures small enough to upload - maybe somebody who is good with that can provide an assist?
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